


Holiday Deductions

by Makani



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Fluff, M/M, Romance, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-22
Updated: 2012-05-22
Packaged: 2017-11-05 20:30:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/410704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Makani/pseuds/Makani
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is planning a vacation with his most recent girlfriend. Sherlock is not happy and decides to take action.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Holiday Deductions

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set between The Hound of the Baskervilles and Reichenbach fall.
> 
> It was written for fuckyeahjohnlockfanfic's contest. The prompt was to write a 2500-5000 word story about Sherlock and John on vacation. Hope you enjoy it :)

“I’m going to France.”, John blurted out. They had been sitting in the living room for quite some time, and while Sherlock had of course noticed John’s uncomfortable shifting in the seat, he had decided not to make enquiries and instead wait until his friend offered the information that was so obviously making him nervous, willingly.

“What?!”, he snapped back. John could be infuriatingly imprecise sometimes? Did he mean he was moving to France, going to a conference, what? 

“On holiday”, the other man offered, “just for a week mind you, with Linda.”

“Oh”, Sherlock responded, annoyed at his lack of eloquence. This certainly wasn’t as bad as the thought of John moving permanently, but somehow he found himself distinctly unhappy about the prospect of spending a week on his own while his blogger was off doing who-knows-what in France. He would have to talk to the skull again and somehow that didn’t seem to be a good alternative to the living, breathing man who had become his companion.

John hesitated for a moment. “You are going to be ok, on your own, right?”

“Of course, don’t be an idiot.” he retorted, bristling at the suggested weakness. “I was perfectly fine before you came along and contaminated my experiments with tea splashes.”

He knew he was being unfair and his voice was more sniping than he necessarily felt. After all, John was normally rather careful with his tea and had only contaminated one of his experiments so far. And really, he couldn’t have suspected that the teacups had been coated with numbing agents. Even though Sherlock thought it hadn’t been right that instead of apologising for ruining his experiment, John had been most put out when his tongue had grown numb.

“Right then.” John said curtly, distracting him from all thoughts of failed experiments, got up and left the room. Sherlock was even more annoyed at that. Why couldn’t they ever get into a proper shouting match anymore? He was quite certain he could outsmart his flatmate in one of those, since his intellect allowed him to think through the rage, while most ordinary people lost all coherency and sense when they were that emotional. But somehow, John seemed to understand the danger of this and chose to just walk away. 

Sherlock spread out on the couch, his back to the rest of his room in his preferred pouting position. His flatmate’s holiday was unacceptable, really. A part of his brain wondered why this bothered him more than the conferences the other man attended now and again. Maybe it was because this proposed ‘holiday’ was meant to be recreational and Sherlock felt left out. No, that couldn’t be it. He hated the thought of going somewhere to be bored for a week. That’s what people did, wasn’t it? Lie on a beach somewhere and relax, enjoying the peace and quiet. Hateful.

What was it then? Maybe it was John’s choice of companion. It was true, he had been dating Linda for a while now, but Sherlock hadn’t thought it was serious enough to warrant a whole week in France together. But the fact that they had booked the flights meant he had misjudged her importance. Would that mean that his flatmate was going to get married and leave Sherlock alone in Baker Street, to work on his own again? That was completely unacceptable. 

He took out his phone and dialled a number. The answer came after just two rings.

“Yes, brother dear, how can I help you today?” Mycroft’s voice drawled.

Sherlock sighed inwardly. “Remember the case you bothered me with yesterday? I will take it, but I have conditions.”

“Name your price…”

 

Half a week later, Sherlock walked into the Departure terminal of Heathrow airport, dragging a black leather suitcase behind him. 

It only took him moments to locate a very angry looking John, arguing with the person behind the desk.

“We’ve booked a flight to Paris, I’m telling you”, his friend was raging. Sherlock decided it was time to step in.

“Hello John.” He began and with a scathing look added a rather cold “Linda” in the direction of the insufferable woman who was probably calculating how to put a ring around his flatmate’s finger at this very moment. 

John’s mouth fell open.

“Sherlock. What are you doing here?” His voice sounded uncertain and already a little bit annoyed. He had obviously guessed that the consulting detective would not turn up just to wish him a good trip. Sherlock was quite proud of this simple deduction on John’s part. He felt like he had definitely helped his friend become more observant. 

“Mycroft needs our assistance on a case. Your flight has been changed accordingly. We are going to the Maldives, which, may I add is a much nicer spot for vacationing anyway.”

His friend gaped at him for a moment and Sherlock felt a hint of annoyance. He had been so hopeful of his friend’s intellect for a moment, but it seemed he had to spell it out again. Before he could elaborate further, though, John had grabbed his arm and pulled him away from Linda.

“Please tell me you’re kidding, Sherlock!” He said as he stared at Sherlock intently.

He wrinkled his brow. Why ever would John assume something outlandish like this? He hardly ever made jokes; surely his friend had observed that by now. Instead of answering, he just kept looking at his flatmate. John would figure it out eventually.

His blogger’s eyes widened. “No, Sherlock!”, he exclaimed, “You can’t do this! This is Sarah all over again. You have got to stop doing this!”

“Oh don’t be so dramatic.” Sherlock shot back, “Linda is going to be thrilled to go somewhere more exciting that Paris. Your army pension can’t have paid for an expensive hotel, which means you would have been stuck in some horrible little suburb, probably taking the bus into the city for sightseeing. What I am proposing is much more fun. We get first class flights, a presidential suite in one of the most luxurious hotels on the Maldives and all we’ve got to do in return is catch a spy who has stolen some secret information or other. Child’s play, we’ll be done in a day and then we’ve got the rest of the week to enjoy the luxury.”

Again, John seemed somewhat dumbfounded. This was getting tedious. Why could nobody else ever just keep up with him? Why didn’t people think? 

“Fine”, John snapped, after what felt like a very long moment of consideration to Sherlock. “You always get your way, don’t you? But I’m warning you, Sherlock, you get one day of my time, one! And if we haven’t caught the spy by then you are on your own and I will enjoy the rest of my holiday with Linda.”

Sherlock wasn’t too happy about that proposal, but it would have to do for now. There would be plenty of time for renegotiations once they had arrived at the location. He nodded.

John raked his hand through his hair. “You do realise that neither Linda nor I have packed for a beach holiday?”, he queried.

“Oh don’t be daft, John, I repacked your suitcase last night, swimming trunks and everything. And as for your little friend here, we will just give her the credit card Mycroft has kindly provided and send her shopping. That should occupy her while we are chasing the spy.” He smiled, quite proud of how he had worked it all out.

His friend just nodded as if he had given up the argument. That’s what Sherlock liked about John. Even if he got upset at first, he tended to just go along with his plans in the end. It was quite nice, being able to depend on somebody else like this. 

“You re-packed my suitcase?”, came the belated response from John, but Sherlock could hear the underlying humour in John’s voice and just gave him a lopsided grin.

Several hours later they arrived at the hotel, and despite the incredible heat, the atmosphere between John and Sherlock was icy. He rolled his eyes.  
First class or no first class, flying for such a long time had just been too boring! Over ten hours of sitting around couldn’t be easy for anybody. He could almost physically feel his brain rotting without any input. So it had seemed only natural to start deducing things about their fellow passengers. He couldn’t have anticipated that it would turn into a full-blown riot and yet John seemed to blame him for it anyway. Sherlock pouted. So far, things were definitely not going according to his plan. At least Linda seemed equally upset, since John had spent pretty much the whole flight with him, trying to entertain him at first, later on screaming at him and trying to placate the disgruntled passengers.

Sherlock allowed himself a small smirk. This time, John had screamed, not just walked out. Of course, the main reason for that was that there was no ‘out’ he could have walked to, but it was progress. Human beings were much more enjoyable when you could observe how they got ruled by their emotions. They were predictable. Though to be fair, John was one of the least predictable human beings Sherlock had ever met. After all he had stayed with him so far, despite all his antics. That definitely counted as unexpected, since nobody else had done anything like it before.

Luckily, John forgot all about his anger when they entered their suite. Sherlock hadn’t been kidding when he had promised the presidential suite. They had an apartment of almost the same size as their flat in Baker Street, with two large en-suite bedrooms. Besides, this one was in a little hut on stilts, hovering over the sea. 

“OMG, this is like so cool!”, was Linda’s exceptionally stupid remark. Sherlock had always been annoyed at text speak even when it was used for actual texting but to hear people say things like that out loud somehow made it even worse. To John’s credit it must be said that he looked rather uncomfortable at his date’s poor use of grammar. Sherlock decided not to comment, it was too soon after his and John’s last fallout and he didn’t want to chance it again.

The last of John’s apprehension about the change of plans concerning their vacation obviously vanished when he walked onto the decked area and found himself looking at an infinity pool that hovered right over the sea. Even Sherlock had to admit that this certainly had style, though spending more than a few minutes here still seemed incredibly dull. 

They heard Linda grumbling about having to wait until the following day to try out the pool since she didn’t have a bathing suit. Being in that woman’s company kept getting more and more tedious, in Sherlock’s opinion. Luckily he had made arrangements beforehand. He took a deep breath and slipped right into his acting mode, putting on a very friendly face, despite not feeling in the least bit friendly towards this insufferable human being.

“If I’m not mistaken, Mycroft has booked you a massage to make up for any troubles this caused.” He said sweetly and looked at his watch, despite knowing exactly what time it was. “The flight was incredibly tiring, I’m sure you’ll appreciate being pampered a little. It’s half five now, the treatment is booked for six o’clock if I’m not mistaken, so you should probably get going.”

He ignored the delighted sounds coming from the blonde girl and looked out the window until he heard the door close behind her. The friendly face had left his face as quickly as it had appeared, but Linda had been too excited about the spa treatment to notice anything off. John hadn’t though.

“I take it this is where we start talking about the case?”, he ventured.

“Absolutely not” Sherlock said, the lightness in his voice real this time, “We’ll start the case tomorrow. One day, as promised. But I thought we might try out the pool and that seemed inconsiderate with one person unable to join us.”

The last part wasn’t entirely true of course. He couldn’t care less whether or not the woman felt left out. But he knew that John would never agree to take a plunge with his date unable to take part so the arrangements had been necessary. Sherlock was determined to show John that it was more fun spending time with him than some annoying blonde girl. If his friend saw that, surely there would be no more romantic getaways with strangers and his flat mate would be happy simply spending time on cases with him. His logic was infallible.

John grinned. “That’s way more thoughtful than I expected. But yes, trying out the pool sounds perfect actually, meet you there in ten?” Sherlock found himself beaming back like a schoolboy. Seeing John this excited about something was strangely intoxicating.

After his friend had vanished into his en-suite, Sherlock called for room service, calculating that John must be hungry by now and this feeling would probably only be aggravated by the exercise of swimming. Once that had been taken care of, he took a quick shower and changed into his trunks.

When he came back out of his room, John was already sitting by the pool, unaware that the detective had come out of the room. Sherlock paused for a moment, just looking at his friend. It was obvious why so many women where drawn to him. He was very good looking, if in a slightly more stocky way. Muscles rippled under his skin and Sherlock found himself strangely fascinated by them. He had never actually seen his flat mate half naked like this before. The scar on his shoulder was white and raised and Sherlock felt the strange desire to find the person who had given John that wound just so he could torture him to death slowly. 

Before he could follow that train of thought any further, a knock at the door broke him out of his reverie. John turned to the sound as well and Sherlock opened the door to get the food before carrying it out to his friend.

“You got room service.” John sounded surprised.

“Perfectly sound analysis.” Sherlock responded, not unkindly. “It has been a while since we got that dreadful meal on the plane and I assumed you would be hungry. Since we were planning on trying out this pool I ordered something light, because swimming after a heavy meal isn’t advisable.” 

“Uhm, thanks.”

John lifted the lid of the silver serving tray. It was filled with different fruits, two prawn cocktails and several crackers. The kitchen staff had arranged it very carefully and made it look so inviting that even Sherlock found himself drawn to try something. Naturally he only took one bite for every ten or so that John had, but that was still more food than he normally consumed. 

They ate in companionable silence for a while, but then Sherlock remembered his plan to make time spent with him better than anything Linda could offer and he decided to start a conversation. He searched for an acceptable topic for a while. What did people talk about when vacationing? Talking about his experiments or their cases didn’t seem the right thing at this point, but Sherlock had never spent much time on chit chat and wasn’t sure he was any good at it. Luckily for him, John chose this exact moment to start a conversation of his own, taking the topic choice out of Sherlock’s hands.

“This place is amazing…”, his friend mused, “definitely more than I could ever afford.” His voice had a slightly wistful quality to it. 

“Why did you want to go on holiday anyway?” Sherlock blurted out. He almost added a ‘with that woman’, but had the presence of mind to keep at least that part of the question to himself.

John chuckled, though it had a slightly bitter quality to it. “You do realise that normal people go on holiday, right? I mean, I know you’re married to your work and all that, but everybody else needs to get out sometimes. Just relax for a bit. That and Linda was really keen. She said she had never seen Paris and I thought it would be nice to go there for a bit.” He shrugged. “Of course she’s probably going to expect way more of me now that she’s seen this. But I guess I’ll just enjoy the time here. I doubt she’ll still want me afterwards, when she realises that this was a one time thing sponsored by your brother.”

Sherlock hadn’t thought of that. It seemed a very pleasant and unanticipated side effect of his plan. He was feeling even better about changing John’s holiday plans. Surely, one week of having Linda around was preferable to her whisking off his friend completely. The silence stretched again and Sherlock looked out onto the sea. The sun had set while they were having their picnic, but the lights had come on automatically, casting a yellow glow around them. 

Suddenly, a splash of water hit his face and he heard John giggle. 

“What was that for?!” Sherlock asked incredulously. 

If anything that made John laugh even harder.

“You should’ve seen your face!”, he chortled.

Sherlock was feeling quite a bit cross and decided to retaliate with a splash of his own. Instead of putting John off the whole thing, the man kept giggling and doing it again. What was even stranger though was that Sherlock found himself grinning. There was no rational reason to find it enjoyable to splash water in somebody else’s face and yet he couldn’t deny the amusement he was feeling. 

Before John could splash him again, Sherlock dived into the pool, stretching his long limbs under water and letting the momentum carry him for a moment before resurfacing. 

“You cheeky bugger!” John said, smiling broadly and dived in as well.

Sherlock watched the blurred form of his friend swimming up to him under water and waited for him to resurface so he could continue their little fight. It provided a strange challenge, to get the other man before John could get him. In some ways it wasn’t dissimilar to a real fight and Sherlock found his heart beating faster.

Instead of stopping and resurfacing, like Sherlock had expected, John just kept diving, barrelling right into the detective and knocking him off his feet. The taller man only had a moment to realise what was happening before he found himself dunked. 

He kicked himself off the bottom of the pool and resurfaced seconds later, spluttering. John was right in front of him, grinning mischievously again. It was impossible not to smile back.

“Never had a water fight before, I take it?” John’s eyes sparkled with glee.

Sherlock shook his head. Had anyone asked him before he would have scoffed and told them that he had better things to do, but right now he was simply enjoying the immense happiness of this simple pleasure. 

He smiled radiantly at John their eyes met. And then it happened. It felt like an electric current going through Sherlock, unlike anything he had ever experienced before. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant, but he still gasped at the shock of it. Time seemed to stand still for a moment and Sherlock took in every detail of his friend, standing there, dripping wet and half naked in front of him.

Water was pearling down his face and Sherlock felt the strange desire to trace the line the drop of water took with his finger. A part of his brain wondered at his sanity, but the rest of it was too caught up in the moment, overwhelmed by a multitude of feelings the detective hadn’t felt since his teenage years. 

Their faces seemed to be getting closer as well, even though Sherlock had made no conscious decision to move forward. John’s eyes had widened and his pupils were blown large. Sherlock randomly observed that his friend’s breathing had become a lot faster and heavier. But then so had his own. They were almost touching now, their lips almost meeting.

The click of the door opening ripped both men out of the moment and they sprang apart as if stung. Linda stepped onto the patio and saw them both in the pool, looking distinctly awkward. Lucky for the men, she was not a very observant person and much too self obsessed besides. After a snide comment about them trying out the pool without her, she started gushing about the massage and Sherlock excused himself and more or less fled back to his room.

He flung himself onto his bed in much the same way he sometimes dropped onto his couch at home and stared at the ceiling. This was most disconcerting. Had he almost kissed John out there? Surely not. He was Sherlock Holmes, the world’s only consulting detective; he didn’t have time for feelings or relationships. They were messy and distracting. His body was transport, nothing else.  
But his heart was still pounding and the image of John with his pupils blown wide and drops of water in his eyelashes seemed permanently burned into his brain. He tried to concentrate on cases instead, past and ongoing. But his thoughts kept drifting back to John again and again. After a while he gave up on trying to focus on something else. If there was a problem between him and John he would have to solve it. 

After all, that was essentially what he did. Solve problems. He might not be used to these problems being of a personal nature, but that shouldn’t matter too much, he decided. So he started by closely examining the feelings he had for John.

Friendship. He definitely felt a lot of friendship; he had even expressed that to John before. And loyalty. He thought back to the incident at the pool with Moriarty and shivered. Yes, definitely loyalty. Possessiveness. He didn’t like John spending time with anybody else and was unhappy when his flat mate dated women. Love. He examined that last word. The reality was that he didn’t have a lot of reference for what love was. He thought of Mycroft and his constant meddling in his life. Was that love? Brotherly love? Or just Mycroft’s sense of duty? Probably not love, he reasoned. “Caring is not an advantage” Mycroft had said to him once. But he did care for John, didn’t he? The thought of John not being there anymore twisted his insides. He wanted to torture whoever had hurt John before. Besides, considering that John was his first real friend, wasn’t it also possible for the man to be his first real love?

But before Sherlock could finish these thoughts he started hearing sounds from the other rooms, and while he couldn’t make out what was being said, he suddenly realised that all his speculations about what he might or might not be feeling for John were completely irrelevant, because that man was out there right now, with somebody else. And John had said on numerous occasions that he was definitely not gay. So Sherlock, inexperienced as he was with the whole situation, might well have misread the signs in the pool. And even if he hadn’t, John was in the other room, probably snogging that insufferable blonde right now. He hadn’t anticipated the stab of pain that thought gave him. Maybe his brother had been right. Caring certainly seemed a disadvantage right now.

He should probably have gone to sleep then and forgotten about the whole incident. But somehow he felt restless, his heart rate elevated. He couldn’t lie still, needed to move, to do something. Pacing the room he grabbed his robe and walked back out onto the patio. What he hadn’t expected was to find John there, on his own, sitting with his feet hanging over the edge of the platform, his arms resting on the railing. He was looking at the stars and obviously hadn’t noticed Sherlock yet. 

Several reasons for his friend’s solitude sprang into his mind and some of them filled his heart with hope while others simply worried him. He could’ve walked away then, left John alone with his thoughts. It was the sensible course of action, to get over this momentary obsession until tomorrow when he could plunge head first into the case again. But somehow he found his feet moving in John’s direction. 

“John.” He said in his deep baritone voice and the other man jumped. “May I join you?”

John looked at Sherlock with wide eyes, then he shrugged. “Sure” he mumbled. 

The detective slid his legs under the railing, mirroring the other man’s position. 

He didn’t look at him as he asked: “Why aren’t you with Linda?”

There was a humourless chuckle next to him. Apparently that was all the answer he was going to get. John could be so frustrating sometimes. What was he supposed to make of that? He was about to ask further, when John spoke again, his voice sounding too loud in the quiet of the night.

“I’m not gay.”

Sherlock’s insides twisted. There was his answer then. It didn’t really matter if Sherlock was discovering feelings for the first time, didn’t matter if he was in love with the man next to him or not, because the man in question had just made it very clear that he wasn’t and would never reciprocate these feelings. The realisation definitely hurt more than he could have expected. 

And then, out of the blue, a hand gently touched his, weaving their fingers together.

“What is this then?”, Sherlock asked almost petulantly. Was this John extending a hand of friendship? He wasn’t sure if he was up for that right now. 

“Oh you insufferable git.” John said, his voice carrying an undercurrent of amused indulgence. “I think I just realised that I don’t have to be.”

“Don’t have to be what?”, Sherlock asked, “For God’s sake, be more precise.”

There was a sigh next to him.

“Gay, Sherlock!”, John elaborated exasperatedly, though the indulgence hadn’t left his voice completely. “I don’t have to be gay to have feelings for you. They have been there for a long time, I think. But I suppressed them, constantly telling myself that I wasn’t... That I couldn’t… But it’s you and your gender doesn’t matter, not really. You are you, just… Sherlock… That’s why I’m out here. Because I’m not sure if you felt what I felt in the pool, if you’re even capable of feeling things like that, but the idea of spending the night with Linda after…” He trailed off.

There was a flutter of hope in Sherlock’s stomach. Was John saying what he thought he was saying? 

“It just didn’t feel right.” the other man said. “I didn’t want to...” And then he turned his head and looked at Sherlock for the first time. He looked so open and vulnerable at that moment and to Sherlock he had never looked more beautiful than he did right then. Not even at the pool earlier. What had happened there had been more of a physical reaction in some ways. This went so much deeper, felt so much more real.

Sherlock’s mind gave him 37 reasons why what he was about to do was in fact an incredibly foolish idea. He ignored them all as he bent down to kiss the man beside him. 

John didn’t spend a single night of the vacation in Linda’s room…


End file.
